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Ancient Detective chinese drama review
Completed
Ancient Detective
0 people found this review helpful
by labcat
Feb 25, 2021
24 of 24 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 9.0
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 8.5
This review may contain spoilers

Nice combination of wuxia and whodunnit

This series consists of a few connected mysteries with an wuxia setting. The story is really good here although there are some kinks in delivery every now and then. For example, the close friendship between the two male leads is developed from the start, but some time around Episode 16, Zhao Wo Huan seems almost as though he is jealous of or upset with his friend's lover, Zhan Shi Qi. Zhan also seems a little out of character in the same episode. Yes, the two male leads are so close that we see them embracing and holding hands at times, but the plot doesn't seem to be set up to suggest that either of them would be jealous of the other's lover.

Zhao Wo Huan, the second male lead, actually turns out to be the more nuanced character for most part. He is righteous but also has a bit of an inferiority complex due to his background. He is eager to prove himself and boast, but never to the extent of being annoying. His loyalty to Jian is admirable, especially in the part where the two friends quarrel but Zhao still risks his life to deal with a killer saving his friend.

The story has many conventional ingredients of wuxia, but it is not focused on the fighting between different set. Instead, the main character, Jian Bu Zhi, is a detective who know no martial arts. With his intelligence and the help of his good friend, Zhao Wo Huan, he manages to solve several mysteries.

There is also romance in the series, but I don't find the romance that nicely developed. It just seems too sudden that Jian and Zhan would fall in love. The doomed romance between Zhao Wo Huan and Ming Yue starts off a little better but we do not really see the depth of Ming Yue's love for the most part despite evidence of her wavering loyalty to her sect.

The series is one of the many that end with a major cliffhanger to pique the audience's curiosity in case it is commercially successful enough for a second season to be made. Sometimes this gets really annoying as the main conflict in the first season isn't resolved. This, however, isn't the case. The plot ends satisfactorily in Season 1, but a huge twist in the identity of Jian Bu Zhi (which many see coming, so it isn't labored at least) makes me wish that a second season would be made.

Comment involving a major spoiler:

Some understand the ending to be revealing that Jian Bu Zhi is not Jian Bu Zhi but the villain who kills Jian Bu Zhi's father eight years earlier. However, it is also quite clear that the ending does not overturn things more drastically than most fans are able to take. The guy we have been watching from the first episode (the so-called fake Jian Bu Zhi) is not really a villain--he's more like a living person who had been zombified and turned into a killing machine by some evil force. The events eight years earlier have caused him to lose his memory and think that he is Jian Bu Zhi.
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